John Robins: This Tornado Loves You

There's something Nick Hornby-like about John Robins. They're both Oxbridge-educated indie fans, clever but not too clever, and they share a fondness for lists. (Robins opens by demonstrating the three varieties of "pussy-line" male comics drop in to their shows to reveal to lady audience members that they are sensitive and good at sex.) The show is about love, and like Hornby, Robins has a gift for talking about emotions and relationships with a conversational ease that obscures his perceptiveness. The show's heart is the story of a relationship, but he ranges widely, telling a note-perfect anecdote about his first crush and analysing the doomed love that exists between a groom and his best man.

In his sixth solo show, in his early 30s, Robins shows he has become a consummate performer. He has almost perfected the art of addressing Everyman concerns without seeming like just another lad. Almost, but not quite. In one overlong routine he acts out a conversation with his premenstrual girlfriend. Burbling platitudes about sisterhoods and cycles of nature, he backs away fearfully until he's almost off the stage. This goes down okay: we're all familiar with the hormonal she-wolf who bites men's heads off. The problem is, we don't know her from real life – she's an archetype who lives in magazines.

Fortunately, such bum notes are rare. Robins nails the simple gags and chucks in just the right amount of sophisticated snark (a riff on "multimillionaire underdog Stewart Lee" is nicely cutting). And at times the personal material achieves, or seems to achieve, a kind of penetrating honesty.